John Vlastelica

John Vlastelica draws from 20 years of recruiting and HR experience, including almost 10 years as a corporate recruiting leader. He was the senior director, global recruiting for Expedia and a recruiting director at Amazon.com, where he scaled up the recruiting function during its formative years. Now, through his consulting and training firm, RecruitingToolbox.com, his team focuses 100% on helping companies build and deploy the right recruiting strategies, processes, systems, tools, and training. Thousands of hiring managers and recruiters across the globe have leveraged the talents, tools, and training of Recruiting Toolbox, including TripAdvisor, Google, Groupon, Nike, Salesforce.com, T-Mobile, World Bank, Dolby Labs, General Electric, Nestle, TGI Fridays, Yahoo!, and CH2M Hill. John has also shared his expertise as a credible and entertaining speaker at US national SHRM, ERE, LinkedIn Talent Connect, and SourceCon conferences, as well as international keynotes at iRecruit Europe, Smart Resourcing London, Australasian Talent, and as an instructor for Recruiting Leadership Labs and Sourcing Labs. @vlastelica

Articles by John Vlastelica...

Now, I’m not an anti-consistency guy at all. To scale, to create a great experience, you need to make sure certain things are predictable and dependable. For example, every candidate should know their status in a process and what the next step is (and timeline of that next step).

But, sometimes, consistency becomes the goal itself, not a means to a goal. And in a talent-centric world – where we preach personalization, creating a stand out experience, tailoring the process/tools/approach to the person — consistency can get in the way, and even create a bad experience. keep reading…

A lot of recruitment leaders we work with are about to launch big initiatives. They’re evaluating new systems, pulling together cross-functional teams to improve their processes, focusing on new or better metrics, or looking for ways to help their hiring managers hire better. All project-y stuff, and the good news is that they all have the budget they need to deliver what’s needed, and they’re really well resourced, with a dedicated project manager and team that is freed up to really focus on the heavy lifting required to create something great.

Right? I mean, talent is a company’s No. 1 priority, so once you make a good business case, you’ll get everything you need to execute flawlessly, right?

Employee referral program discussed within a new hire’s first few weeks (maybe even during our orientation)? Check.

Employees who make referrals are recognized (with bonuses and good ol’ fashioned public recognition)? Check.

Recruiters regularly soliciting referrals from employees? Most recruiters do. But what do the best do differently?

As consultants and trainers, we work with a lot of different recruitment teams, and regularly see companies doing more than just the referral basics these days. More than just “poster and pray,” sharing the program and bonus opportunity with new hires, or sending out recognition (from recruiting or the business leaders) to top referrers. And, individual recruiters are regularly soliciting referrals.

It’s one of the best low-hanging-fruit “direct sourcing” techniques out there. I mean, who doesn’t want warm leads for tough to fill jobs? But, how are they soliciting them? This actually matters. And the best recruiters do it a little differently.

Despite the economy, most recruiting professionals I speak with are busy. As the head of global recruiting for Expedia (I have returned to the corporate world!), I can tell you that we’ve never been busier. Candidate applications are up more than 100% from last year, recruiting budgets and teams are smaller, but the business is growing, not shrinking like you might expect.

I feel like we’re on the cusp of another breakout period for our profession. Good stuff is ahead, and I’m excited to be part of it. As a regular ERE speaker, I’ve enjoyed networking with and learning from my colleagues over the past five years, and I’m thrilled and honored to be your ERE conference chair and MC for the Spring Expo March 15-17, 2010. keep reading…